Month: August 2014

Whether it’s watching “Game of Thrones”, or mindlessly following the trail of “suggested YouTube videos” for an hour, I am certainly a consumer of escapism.

But my problem with escapism is when it is used as a tool by the elite to stunt the potential of the masses so they become passive, inactive consumers of escapist-products like reality TV shows, celebrity worship, and trips to Disney.

So when I heard about ABC’s new reality TV show “The Quest”, I was admittedly fascinated by the concept, but also curious about its implications.

If you haven’t heard, “The Quest” is a new show that combines a traditional reality TV show, with a fantasy “Lord-of-the-Rings-Type” story line. Think of it like the reality show “Survivor” meets the fantasy show “Game of Thrones”. That’s LITERALLY what it is.

They took real-world people, who were obsessive fans of fantasy already, and made them contestants on “The Quest”, which is full of castles, dungeons, monsters, and every cliched fantasy stereotype you can think of — oh, except, they added a black guy, lol.

Okay, okay, I know: who cares if he’s black? Oh, I don’t care, but it is funny that, as a contestant in “The Quest”, he’s the first black main character in a fantasy story that I’VE ever seen.

screenshot from “The Quest”

Maybe this just further proves how delusional this form of escapism is: it’s SO fake, it can’t even properly recreate the white-only lead roles that have dominated every fantasy movie since…since FOREVER!

But enough with the black dude: I actually like him the most (yes, I did watch the first episode, half out of curiosity, half for research purposes — I swear).

The first episode begins with background on the contestants. The deep-toned narrator, speaking with the typical fantasy-narration-voice, sets the premise of the show to visuals of New York City time-lapse footage, saying: Continue reading →